Looking for Pearls: Ports Authority protecting historic live oaks

Ben Goggins/For Savannah Morning News Robert Morris, communications director for the Georgia Ports Authority, and KC Allan, project manager with the Savannah Tree Foundation, stand under the second-oldest live oak, which took root circa 1649, in the Garden City Terminal grove. As they stand under one of its massive limbs, Morris is explaining to Allan the work done by the arborists.

Ben Goggins/For Savannah Morning News Georgia Ports Authority communications director Robert Morris stands under the Garden City Terminal's oldest live oak, circa 1645. Note the cut where a weak limb was removed by the arborists. GPA placed a marker and plaque in front of the oldest trees.

Ben Goggins/For Savannah Morning News An egret stands along the banks of a 14-acre artificial wetland created by the Georgia Ports Authority.

Ben Goggins/For Savannah Morning News The Avenue of Oaks (circa 1888) formed part of Whitehall Plantation. These trees are part of the grove that includes the 1649 oak.

“We knew that we had something special. But we didn’t know how special until the arborists got back to us. It was like the appraiser on ‘Antiques Roadshow’ telling you your family heirlooms were worth a million dollars.”

That’s how Robert Morris, communications director for the Georgia Ports Authority, told the story of the ancient oaks that stand on their property at the Garden City Terminal.

“We knew that, when you stood under them, you felt like you were under something majestic, something almost hallowed,” he said.

He was talking about two magnificent stands of more than two dozen live oak trees on what was Whitehall Plantation. Trees that are old and massive, truly state treasures.

The two oldest date from 1645 and 1649. That means they were mature before the Colony was founded, before Oglethorpe and Tomochichi became friends. They sprouted along the Savannah River when Tomochichi’s grandfather was a boy.

In 2013, on Arbor Day, GPA executive director Curtis Foltz made the announcement that they were placing those historic oaks under protective governance in perpetuity — never to be developed, always to be cared for.

Savannah Tree Foundation staff probably felt like they had died and gone to heaven with that extraordinary conservation commitment by the GPA. STF nominated the GPA for the Georgia Urban Forest Council Grand Business Award last year, and they won it by a mile.

Morris had invited STF project manager KC Allan out to see how the trees were doing under their continuing protection. He wanted especially to show her a fence that had been relocated to protect even further the root systems of the trees. I got to come along because KC had seen my strong mulching ability at some of STF’s volunteer tree plantings.

As we stepped into those old groves, the temperature must have dropped 20 degrees. And it was so refreshing, the big trees doing what big trees do — giving off lots of oxygen. Morris said everyone at the port feels really connected to the trees and privileged to be their guardians and stewards, not their owners.

Besides those two grandest 17th century oaks, Morris pointed out other specific trees and their ages. Full of Spanish moss and resurrection ferns, they are markers for the history of the state and nation:

One circa 1721, when South Carolina became a colony.

One circa 1773, another circa 1777, taking root during the Revolutionary War.

One circa 1789, when George Washington became president.

One circa 1861, sprouting during the early days of the Civil War.

I talked later with Shannon Baughman of Bartlett Tree Experts, who is contracted to care for the trees. He said the GPA is taking no shortcuts. They regularly test the soil and fertilize as indicated; they prune and trim, and carefully remove problem vines; they remove invasives; they have installed lightning protection.

Morris showed us a 14-acre wetland, created by the GPA, that was unveiled on Earth Day this year. It’s a project dear to the heart of GPA environmental sustainability manager Natalie Dawn. She explained how they built the wetland from scratch to handle storm water runoff.

They did not go the easy route of burying culverts to quickly route untreated storm water to the river. They wanted to clean the water nature’s way, so they built a sinuous marshy stream where the soil and vegetation could do the purifying — an entire intact ecosystem with all the right native plants and microorganisms.

And that approach created not just a sensible means of cleaning and buffering storm water, but a thriving natural habitat. Dawn rattled off the names of the turtles, frogs, salamanders, snakes, insects and birds that now fill the wetland area, along with the gambusia fish that gobble mosquito larvae.

Morris said the GPA’s commitment to do things the environmentally sustainable way, from treasuring the old growth trees to building a rich wetland, flows from the top down. He told me one story that illustrated that in a literal, aerial way.

He said Foltz was talking with an airline pilot before a flight from Atlanta to Savannah. When he told the pilot where he worked, the pilot said they could see the light from the port as soon as they reached cruising altitude, and that it served as a beacon to Savannah.

The pilot meant it as flattery, but Foltz knew it amounted to serious light pollution and wasted energy. So the port set upon a course of lighting software and design that has now reduced energy costs by 60 percent. I’m sure the pilots can still find their way, and the migrating birds prefer the change — especially birds that light in oak trees. We saw several bluebirds as we walked through the Whitehall Plantation Avenue of Oaks, planted in the 1880s, and in the Fairlawn Cemetery near that oldest live oak.

Morris is an artist who recently had a show at Ships of the Sea Museum. They were paintings of the Savannah River from the port to the sea. He’s done mixed-media work on civil rights themes. He says he has been letting the energy of the trees soak in, and one weekend soon, he’ll set up his easel out there.

Mourners at the funerals at Fairlawn often move over to the great oaks to look up through the silhouettes that seem to cover the sky; to touch the bark; for comfort and a sense of memory.

One Christmas, when our granddaughter and a live oak in our yard were both 4 years old and about the same height, she decorated it with silver balls so that our friend, Mr. Irwin, who lived in the nursing home next door, could see it from his window. Now it’s 25 feet tall, she’s working on her master’s degree and it’s the first thing she wants to see when she visits.

Legend has it that, in antiquity, “The Persian king Xerxes halted his unwieldy army for days that he might contemplate to his satisfaction the beauty of a single sycamore.”

I know that back in 1864 Gen. Sherman passed a lot of live oaks between Atlanta and Savannah. But maybe, contemplating that oak grove out in Garden City, it softened his heart a little, and that’s why he went so easy on us.

Ben Goggins, a retired marine biologist, lives on Tybee Island. He can be reached at 786-6181 or bengoggins9@gmail.com.